Have you started using Twitter but unsure how to really get the most out of it for recruiting and business development purposes? Twitter Lists can really help you become a part of an engaged community.

Here are 4 types of list that can help you super-charge and focus your time on Twitter.

The Unmissable

There are some people whose tweets you have to see. You best friend, your mum (maybe), your clients, or breaking news about your favourite band (you wouldn’t want to miss gig tickets!). A list containing some or all of these people can help you check only the most essential tweets if you’re in a hurry.

In this category, I have a “VIPs” list for friends and family, a “Clients” list for those I work or have worked with and a “Doctor Who” list.

You might want to keep some of these lists set to private, especially the “Clients” one!

The Attention Grabber

If you want to grow a following on Twitter then you need to get people’s attention. Simply tweeting your guts out isn’t always enough.

You can of course follow lots of people and hope they will follow you back, but a high ratio of following to followers can look a bit desperate.

This is when I use lists.

Create a list and add the sort of people you would like to have as followers to it. I use this approach on the UK Sourcers Twitter account. I add any recruiters I come across on Twitter to a list called “UK Recruitment Types”. If they then check out the account and choose to follow, I make sure to follow back.

By their very nature, this type of list has to be set to public, rather than private, otherwise no one will know they’ve been listed.

The Networker

When you go to an event, the networking aspect can be tough for those of us that aren’t quite as extrovert as others. Run a search on the event name and the event #hashtag in the weeks ahead and build yourself a list of all the twitter users attending. That way you can get to know them and exchange tweets ahead of meeting in person.

There are a lot of events we can’t go to as well – time and money are not limitless. You can however use the same method as above to access those attending events, even when you can’t be there yourself.

It’s up to you if you want to keep your list private or make it public and benefit from “The Attention Grabber” effect too.

The Infiltrator

This type of list is really handy if you recruit people in a niche community.

Create a private list of people that work in your niche, have a particular job title, or who work for a competitor. Then visit that list on a regular basis and reply to its members’ tweets – but only if you have something worthwhile to contribute. Be helpful, insightful or funny and become a part of this community. Engaging out of work hours is particularly good – what do these people watch on TV? If you watch it too, you can join in with their tweets. These people are more than their job titles, in the same way that you are more than a recruiter.

The next time you mention a job that is relevant to this community, they will be far more likely to share it for you.

The Cuckoo

Don’t have time to raise your own chicks create your own lists? Use the lists that others have created.

You could pick interesting people and rifle through the lists they are on and the lists they have created (if any). This is great way to find similar profiles.

You can also use the site: search command with Google to search for interesting Twitter lists. Try a search string like this with your own keywords instead:

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Twitter has a great feature to help recruiters and sourcers find relevant and respected twitter accounts – Twitter Lists. This feature isn’t very well promoted though so might not be immediately discovered by new users.

If you are an active Twitter user then you will not have failed to notice a few notifications appearing in your “@Connect” section saying that someone has added you to a list or two. You might even have created a few lists of your own.

What are Twitter lists?

A Twitter user can create a list and add Twitter accounts that interest them to it. You don’t have to follow a person to add them to one of your lists. Once you create and name a list you can start adding people to it right away using the little drop down menu on their profile.

A twitter list can be public (other people can see who is on it and choose to follow it) or private (only you know who is on your private lists and only you can make use of them).

You can find someone’s Twitter lists by visiting their profile on twitter.com and looking at the options on the left hand side of the page. You can view @UKSourcers’ Twitter lists here: http://twitter.com/uksourcers/lists

What is so great about Twitter Lists?

People more knowledgeable than you do all the hard work: people create lists of people that share their interests. I have a list of Star Trek fans, I know that they are all massive Trekkers but very few of them probably mention this in their Twitter bios. I also have a list of Sourcers that are based in the UK. People often create lists of other people in their industry or people they met at a particular event. This is really useful curation.

Follow targeted people fast: You can follow someone else’s list with one click or choose a few people off their list to follow in your main timeline. This makes following a very targeted group very quick to do.

Follow accounts without them knowing: It would be nice to be able to keep tabs on your competitors on Twitter without getting their attention, wouldn’t it? Keep an eye on them without adding to their follower account? You can by listing them on a private list.

Never Miss Important Tweets: Now that I follow more than 2,000 people I’ve had to get creative to prevent missing tweets from the people that I care about the most. This has led me to create private lists like “Clients” so that I always know what they’re up to and can help them out if needed and another list called “VIPs” for my closest friends and family so that I don’t miss their news.

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More than 2,000 UK Recruitment types listed on Twitter

When I started UK Sourcers back in 2009 I had a mission to list as many recruitment related twitter accounts from the United Kingdom as I could. Twitter lists were new and this was how I first discovered that the maximum number of people you can have in a list is 500. Did you know that?

The UK Recruitment Types Twitter list is now in it’s 5th part! That means I’ve listed more than 2000 recruiters from the UK. Want to follow UK Recruiters? It’s a good place to start

Back when I first started using Twitter as @UKSourcers, I set out to find as many recruitment related Twitter accounts in the UK as I could. This was to include those that identified as part of recruitment, head hunting, executive search, sourcing, resourcing, job boards and HR. No small task, and I’m sure there’s a lot I have missed.

It was not long before I realised that Twitter puts a limit on the number of people you can add to a single list. A Twitter list is capped at 500 accounts.

Last week I had to start a 4th incarnation of the “UK Recruiter Types” list because I found my 1500th UK Recruitment related Twitter account.

If you would be interested in seeing all the accounts I have found – see my lists on Twitter:

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UK Sourcers is a community run by Katharine Robinson (aka TheSourceress).

It is a resource for UK recruitment professionals to learn more about Internet sourcing techniques.